


While You Were Falling

by hungrytiger



Category: Little Nemo's Adventures in Slumberland
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Yuletide, Yuletide 2010, falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-12
Updated: 2010-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-13 15:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungrytiger/pseuds/hungrytiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when you fall in a dream? Flip and the Princess discuss. A Yuletide 2010 story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While You Were Falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elvira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvira/gifts).



They watch Nemo’s body fall down, out of sight, and still the Princess’ hand is reaching out, as if, miles and miles down, Nemo could still reach up and grab it. And maybe he could, Flip uneasily admits to himself. Grow his bones, stretch arms all that way up, get wings, take flight, float on absolutely nothing-All a possibility and then some. Stranger things have happened, with Nemo leading the way. He’s a king a’ mischief that way (almost as good as himself).

But, no, nothi-well, not _nothing_. The minute Nemo disappears; buildings stop chasing them and sit down, their legs disappearing once again into the ground, arms lowering against their sides, becoming porches and bushes once again. That’s a big enough relief in and of itself; Flip feels the need to sit down. He draws out his cigar too, reaches for a lighter.

“Just what are you _doing_? Nemo’s fallen off the forty-seventh floor! He could be dead and you’re smoking a cigar?”

Flip spares a glance to admire how cute the little Princessy looks, all riled up. Though, truth be told, she isn’t all that little looking anymore, and Flip’s got his own theories about that, but he’ll keep them to hisself at the moment, thank you very much! You just didn’t know when information like that might come in handy.

He exhales, smoke circling around his face. It’s a good, pungent smell to settle the nerves.

“S’not like he hasn’t fallen before,” he points out. That’s right, he reminds himself, trying to quiet the part of him that’s shouting _Forty-seven floors! Forty-seven floors! He’s a splat! He’s a goner! Forty-seven floors!_ But- The kid’s always doing that. He’s _always_ doing it- Falling. Still, Camille doesn’t like that kind of an answer one bit, he can see. Her eyes crumple, little wrinkles forming all around the edges, and her breast heave nicely, and she even stamps her little booted foot. Flip could sell tickets to the shows she puts on sometimes, and this one was already looking to be a good one, s’long as she didn’t try to band him from his cigars again.

“And just what is that suppose to mean?”

Flip smiles. With each exchange, his confidence is growing, and his own words put his conscience at ease even more. Worried? Not on your life!

“Nemo’s just ‘bout the only boy I know who’s always falling- offa cliffs, down holes, over railings, outta trains, offa _buildings_ now, and still comes back alive. He’ll fall offa sumthin’- usually leavin’ us in a jam- and yet show up later, in last place a body’d expect, if’n I know him! And, ifn’ ya fall _with_ him, ya land some place even odder than that.”

“You don’t know that!” And then there was her foot stamp again. Cute. Just…cute.

“Nah,” Flip concedes, still determinedly unworried. Things looked to be settling down now that Nemo was gone. Despite what he’d told the little missy, things always _did_ settle down once Nemo was gone, jam or no jam. If things are bad when Nemo- leaves, falls, whatever- well, they’d still be bad, but they’d be calm. A calm sort of bad. And you wanted calm sometimes. The last thing a body needed after playing a prank on the police force was to turn a corner and find a hallway that had never been there before, or a door you’d never seen standing locked before you. Both things happened regularly when the kid was in on his jokes.

Camille’s lip juts out.

“It’s not funny, Flip.”

“Never said it was, Missy.”

“And put out that cigar. I hate that smell.”

The smell was always nice, if strong, to him.

“I mean, it, Flip. Put it out.”

He takes another puff.

“Its just-“ she starts, then stops. Flip rubs his temples, stares down at his gloves, now stained with green make-up smears. No good comes out of the word ‘just.’ At least not when the Princess says it.

“- Its just, have you noticed it takes longer now?”

Longer for Nemo to show up again? Who knew how the kid drops in and out of Slumberland at all? He only takes the airship one out ten trips. Flip’s certainly never questioned it. But- yeah. He’d noticed.

“Its cause he’s getting older.”

Just a theory, and a theory’s nothing real. Right?

“He’s not,” Camille snorts, plopping down most unlady-like beside him. The silk of her skirts brushes along his side.

“Yeah, he is. You are too.”

“I am not!”

Flip sets the cigar down, but doesn’t snub it out. It sits, burning on the ground.

“Ya never noticed? Really?”

“I-I-“ She’s turning tomato-red, getting cuter all the time. “You haven’t changed at all.”

No, he hasn’t. Nice to see that his debonair good looks haven’t gone unappreciated by the ladies, he thinks, giving her a leer to let her know he knows she knows it. But Flip suspects his un-agification has more to do with Nemo than himself. Camille’s growing as Nemo grows; Nemo’s perception of the Princess is aging her just as Nemo- and who could blame the kid, really? - sees Flip himself as some sort of unchanging constant-a hero of sorts, he’s sure. He always did cut quite the figure.

Unsettling, really, that some kid, some little pipsqueak, could control Flip and his own body, but never thinking about it saved a body the worry. Just like he didn’t think too hard about where people selling maps of Nightmareland had gotten them from, Flip doesn’t think too much about how the King of Slumberland’s heir seems to get reality bent around to his perceptions all the time. Too deep for anyone who wasn’t a brain like Professor Genius- and ever see the Professor at a party? Talk about a bore.

“Whadya about Nemo? Ya never noticed him changin’ neither, eh?”

Her high-horse-ness’ nose shoots up into the air, but those tomatoes stay on her cheeks. Oh-ho, Flip thinks. So she has noticed.

“Well,” she says, her voice at its most hoity-toity. “One’s bound not to notice such…changes, if the boy in question is always wandering around in his _pajamas_.”

Flip smirks. If he’s not mistaken- and he never is, no matter what certain police forces might think - he’s one up on his ol’ pal Nemo. Their pretty Princessy just as good as admitted she’d noticed what _he’d_ looked like and hadn’t noticed Nemo’s looks one bit!

“And what about y’self?” he asks, running one green-smeared finger along the silken edge of her skirts, right up by where they brushed his pant leg. And its not even indecent, she’s the one whose clothes are brushing up against him. “Didn’t notice no changes there, huh?”

And her leg twitches when his fingers drift closer than he realizes and brush not just silk but underneath that, skin.

“Well-but I-“

And her hand reaches out, grabs his, and not just to stop his movements, he’s sure. Well. Possibly, anyway. He could press the point, but ol’ Flip, while he’s a rogue through and though, he’s also a gentleman too.

Instead, he keeps a hold of her hand and pulls her up with him. With his other hand, he grabs the cigar, still laying down beside him. He takes a drag, but pointedly blows away from her face. Its thirty seconds or so before she seems to realize what’s got a hold of her, and she jerks her hand away. Green make-up is smeared in a clumsy line down her thumb. Flip doesn’t say anything, just calculates the odds of whether he’ll be there to see her face when someone else thinks to mention she’s got his clown make-up all over her hand. _What could you have been doing_ , they’ll ask.

Instead, he puffs on his cigar once more, before tossing it over the edge. Forty-seven floors down, maybe it lands. Maybe it doesn’t. Only Nemo would know.

“Whatdya bet the palace is where he shows up next?”

And, alright, who knows how long it will be till he does that, but Camille is obviously remembering all the times Nemo _has_ done just as Flip’s been saying he does do as he do do.

“Well, I suppose, we’d best be on our way, then, shan’t we?” she says, already turning, as if Flip has already agreed. To the castle it is then, to wait for Nemo and their next adventure, and maybe make an adventure or two for themselves in the meantime.

“Lead the way, Missy,” Flip says, bowing to her retreating figure. At least from the back, he can enjoy the way those hip sashay beneath the silk and ruffles. And boy, do they _sa-_ shay. “Lead the way.”


End file.
